On the day Royal Mail was fined £10.5m by Ofcom for not meeting its post delivery targets for the second year running, and just a few days before the Government approved the sale of Royal Mail’s parent company to a Czech tech billionaire, I was at the Royal Mail sorting office in Brentwood.
At this time of year I suspect our local posties are far too busy to think about what is going on at the ownership and managerial level of the company, and are focussed on sorting and delivery the thousands of pieces of post and parcels coming into their office every day.
While Christmas music played through the office speakers, dozens of red-clad post men and women moved huge wheeled baskets of post around the office, which is divided into the postcode areas of Brentwood. The room is was being managed by Roshni Sangha, who was confident the Christmas post this year is going to get to everyone in good time, despite not being allocated all the additional staff she had asked for over this busy period.
I still send letters to constituents who get in touch with me and, on the whole, I know our local postal service is very good. There are occasional times when sickness or holidays means a round is late or delivered more slowly by a new postal worker, but we are still fortunate in having regular postal deliveries as laid out in the Universal Service Obligation. As someone who has spent much of this year delivering election literature, my admiration and thanks go to all our local postal workers who deliver the post come rain, shine, hills and finger-trapping letterboxes.
In Christmas week, I hope your local postie has brought you letters and cards from family and friends, and you are ready to celebrate this time of year in your own way. I will be with my family in the constituent and am looking forward to attending local carol services while we are all together here.
